An Arrow in Time
by Reuben-on-wry
Summary: After the assassination of President Coin, the citizens of Panem are left leaderless and completely downtrodden. Katniss discovers a way to bring light and hope to millions of people, but the path is a dangerous one that she must travel alone, and to a place no human eye has seen for hundreds of years. Dedicated to my good friend "recycler."
1. Chapter 1 - Holding Breath

**Chapter 1 - Holding Breath**

Onlookers filled every square inch around the courthouse. The trial had lasted for two days, during which time most of them had remained where they were, all day and all night. They stood as far as the eye could see, shabby coats and shirts over thin, chilly frames. Their only thought was inside those walls. Even food was forgotten. Their only thoughts were with their savior, in flesh, who was being tried for the unthinkable crime of assassination. Why on earth had she done that? Was there a good reason? Was she really crazy, or trying to steal the presidential office for herself? Couldn't be, they told themselves. Unless…

Suddenly, rumors began to circulate that a verdict has been handed down. What was it? What happened? And then, the sound of bees. It grew louder, and turned to a rumbling, like a bitter and spiteful wind. From the south over the rooftops came a silver hovercraft, red burners below casting off orange sparks as they pushed away the ground. The craft banked sharply and began diving towards the courthouse, towards the twenty foot door that held all of their fates inside.

The crowd scattered as the craft dived, people trampling over anyone slower or shorter. It landed roughly on the sidewalk right in front of the door, just as it burst open. A thin woman with long, brown braids was pushed towards the ship by two men. One was short and thick, like a barrel with arms. The other had short cropped dark hair, severe eyes, and thick frames. They dashed into the hovercraft. As thousands of fervent devotees looked on in wonder, the ship bounded into the air, turned its rear towards the courthouse and soared out of sight. Their eyes trained on the ship as it headed towards the largest single building in all of Pan Em - the presidential palace.


	2. Chapter 2 - Unveiling

**Chapter 2 - Unveiling**

The steel cabin smelled like gasoline, cold and a dirty metal. In a corner near a pile of rifles, Katniss knelt, held her stomach, and vomited. She was free. "Temporary insanity" was the judgement the judge gave. He sounded equal parts sad and disappointed.

Immediately after the ruling, she opened her mouth but she was pulled off her feet before she could say a word. Two strong hands began maneuvering her towards the exit even before the judge had a chance to stand. The witnesses and jurors surged towards her, but Peeta knocked them away with a trunk-like arm.

Peeta pulled her through the masses. On her other hand was a tall, black man who shouldn't have been there. "Beetee?" she said? He smiled, though you could tell he was intently focused on moving her out of there.

"Hold on," Beetee said. "We've got to get to our ride."

And then they were in the sky. And she wasn't going to die anymore. She wa sure, so very sure it was all over at last. So much had happened. Prim. Cinna. Rue. So many people who died, many by her. She was ready for death. She felt like she deserved it. But apparently that wasn't to be.

Her stomach felt like it was full of soap and toilet water. She pulled her eyes shut and released everything that was inside. Then she made her way back to a seat. Outside the craft, white rooftops blurred past. The dirt streets were mostly empty. She could see someone had spraypainted the Mockingjay in black at a cross-streets. She looked up, and saw blue sky and clouds. White clouds that carried on as if nothing had happened.

Peeta talked to the pilot, who seemed nice enough. She was happy to see Peeta again, but she didn't talk to him. Her emotions were too out of whack. She didn't want him to see her cry, or for her to lash out and take something out on him. For all his strength, he was always as gentle as a little boy.

The sun was setting outside, so the inside of the unlit craft became crowded with shadows. She had a few moments to herself as they set off to whatever Beetee had to show her. She wondered how he got to the courthouse, and how he had hired this aircraft. Maybe it belong to whoever took it by force. Maybe that's the way things would always be.

A heat began in her veins. The temperature was low at first, just a little warm in her arms. But her heart began to pump the hot lead around her body until she began to thought of that bastard Snow and everyone he'd killed. She thought of this country, filled with people who were free but could they run a country? Who was going to bring in the coal? Or fix the buildings when they broke down? Snow had always held all the cards. And now that he was gone, no one had any clue has to proceed. She sure didn't. And even dead his awfulness continues, like a curse over everyone. Of course he had to die. But she wished somehow things didn't have to be like this.

"Where are we going?" she asked, her words tumbling out into the noisy, cold air. She immediately wshed she hadn't said anything. She looked outside and wondered how high up she was. How far she would fall.

"Never mind. It doesn't matter," she said. "Everything has already been ruined. We're going to keep starving, fighting and freezing, and being scared. That's the way it has to be."

"Maybe not," Beetee said. "There's something we need to show you."


	3. Chapter 3 - The Room

**Chapter 3 - The room**

The palace was an quiet white mountain that reached up to the stars. Floodlights built into the floor shot up columns of brightness into the sky. The massive edifice was completely deserted. Hangers-on to the old regime either fled, just the resistance or perhaps were killed - you just didn't know. But the fear of the place - and the newness of the regime changes - still kept people away.

The three of them walked right up the seemingly endless rows of white marble steps towards the main entrance. Two lions adorned the gate. Behind them were barely concealed gun towers, quad cannons trained on nothing at all. Were they really expecting an aircraft raid when they owned all the ships, she wondered? The interior corridors had polished floors and brass lamp fixtures on the walls. The guard station, eatery, and presumably what served as servants quarters were vacant, as if the building had absorbed its inhabitants.

Beetee led both of them down the corridors towards a bank of elevators. Seeming to know what she was thinking, Beetee broke the silence. "The palace has it's own generator, which can run itself in the case of… well… desertion. I think it may run on a combination of primitive fusion and thermal energy. The rest of the country might go dark for a bit, but this place will be running for a while."

They got into an brass elevator with wood panels. The buttons numbers ran in a thick column from 1 to 40, but the buttons also ran sideways with labels like E4 and M17. Katniss guessed this elevator could somehow run sideways. Or maybe the building itself changed based on what you pressed. It was too much - for them to have had all of this. During her time in a holding cell she ate spiders.

Beetee pressed 4, then 1, then 17, then 3 and 8 together. The elevator began descending. For minutes the three of them stood there, as classical music was piped in from some machine Katniss couldn't even imagine. It stopped at a certain point, and a warm, female voice asked for a passcode. "Charlotte," Beetee said with a smile. The elevator continued. Minutes passed as the car dropped further and further down. Their ears popped. New songs came on the radio. Peeta gave her a side hug. "Cheer up. You look even worse than you did during the trial."

After a while, the elevator doors opened. A grey metal walkaway led toward a bank of large machines covered in blinking lights and flat screens. Control panels in a semi circle faced a small raised platform underneath what looked like a giant transparent gun barrel. The place hummed earnestly, and the air smelled like warmed copper.

"Here we are," Beetee said. "We had to do quite a lot of digging - figuratively of course - to put together enough pieces to find this place. And to figure out what this beautiful machine does - well, that's probably the greatest machine of my life."

"It works," he said, his voice was welling with hope and reverence. "It works."

"What is it?" Katniss said, annoyed and not feeling the least bit impressed. "Beetee, I know this must be important to you but… I've had it. I've been through enough that I'd rather just live out the rest of my life with Peeta someplace far, far away from everyone. I'm tired. I've given up, and nothing is going to change that."

She looked her friend, her good friend, and said, "I'd like to go. I really don't want to be here right now."

"Katniss," Beetee said. "I brought you here so you CAN leave." He waved his hand at the thick steel walls, and the miserable world beyond it.

"Not just this building, but all of this. This entire place. Leave, and come back with a way to save all of us. This machine can do that. It can send you someplace with answers, with hope, with goodness. A place far away from the craters and the starvation and the ruin. A place in the past, Katniss. Our past. This machine can send you in the past, and bring you back again. It's a machine of time, Katniss. It can save us all."


	4. Chapter 4 - Analytics

**Chapter 4 - Analytics**

Katniss sat on the floor while Beetee talked for the next three hours. What he said didn't make any sense, but Katniss listened anyway. Listening hadn't been her strong suit during the Hunger Games - she was a doer. Or so she thought. But machines and science were Beetee's life, so she let him "unpack," as people in the Capital were fond of saying. Peeta pulled over a chair and sat in it backwards. His brows were sunken and lay heavily above his eyes. Why did he look so stern all of a sudden?

"President Snow had incredible resources at his disposal," Beetee began. "He had technological research projects running at all times with political, military, economic and sociological goals. But he was also a dictator, and he did what he wanted to as well."

From a transparent table next to him, Beetee took out a red leather-bound book with a gold spine. "SNOW" was written there in large cursive letters.

"We found this in the library upstairs," he said. "Remind me to show you there when you get back."

"Get back from where?" she asked him. But he ignored her and kept talking.

"It's a record of Snow's ancestors. It goes way back. Some of the work is incomplete or spotty. Keeping complete records must have been difficult during the Dark Days." He flipped through the yellow pages. It was filled with hand-drawn maps, tombstones and lots and lots of names and dates.

"But it goes back even further than that. It goes back to a time before the wars and the shortages. He was able to track his family tree back more than 250 years, by our best estimate, to his earliest known relative. A woman named Charlotte Snow. For reasons I am not totally sure of, this machine was built so he could travel back all of those years to that period. Maybe it was a research mission. Maybe he wanted something from there. Or just someone to talk to. But he did it - he built it."

"Unfortunately for him things started to go south with you before he had a chance to really use it. To the best of my knowledge it's been tested on machines and small animals but never people."

"Stop. Just stop." Katniss said. She argued with him that it was impossible. He responded that time wasn't "linear" - whatever that was, and that history was like a coiled snake. You can crawl outside of the snake and walk on it's back and towards the past, he said.

"There are limits, though," Beetee said. "Based on the research they've already done, when you travel back you go to an alternate past. It looks the same as yours, but it's not connected to your timeline. This means you could, in theory, if you start in universe A, you can travel back in time 10 years to universe B, kill yourself and then return to universe A and nothing will have happened."

He stopped to let this sink in.

"So you're essentially a tourist in someone else's past, but never your own. For all intents and purposes, however, it's indistinguishable from the world you left. It may be that Snow was hoping to steal resources from alternative timelines, or bring back war machines to his time. We'll never know."

Katniss didn't know what to make of this, but she sensed she was about to find out something she'd rather not.

"How do I fit into this?" she said.

Beetee held out his hand and led her own to the machine. The transparent tube that reached down from the machine looked like a smooth line of animal intestine. Did things come out of it, or were things sucked up there?

"What you said before is right," Beetee said. "Snow and his regime had total domination over Panem and every fabric of society. After reading some of the books here on military history and geopolitics, there's a very good chance this country is going to splinter soon into civil unrest, and then tribal warfare. There will be battles over food, territory, and power."

"Another dark ages," Peeta said.

"Even if we spent time reading all these books, there's no substitute for experience. And you are a leader Katniss, but there's no one alive right now who knows how to lead this country. Or create a system of government that will keep people safe. There's no one alive today, but..."

"There used to be," Katniss interrupted. "And you want me to go, what, on a mission to the past to bring back a map or something that will fix the world?"

"Yes," Beetee said, regretfully. "That's about it."

Katniss' eyes trained on the floor. She looked at the bottom of her shoe and could see her toes through the holes. She rubbed her nose and looked up at the ceiling. Outside the steel, a million miles above, were clouds.

"Well then," Katniss said. "I'd say we should get started then, shouldn't we?"


	5. Chapter 5 - Backflip

**Chapter 5 - Backflip**

They spent the next few hours preparing. Beetee explained the details:

She was going back 250 years.

She would appear in exactly the same location inside Panem.

No matter what she did, she would be unable to change the future from where she left.

She would would arrive safely - the machine would not be able to send her someplace where there was already solid matter.

The machine would transport just her and what she was carrying. She had to swallow an acorn-sized green metal ball. It wouldn't digest, Beetee said. That would be her ticket home - the machine would lock on it and pull her back to the future after a preset period of time.

"Only a few seconds should elapse for us," Beetee remarked. "But for you, a whole year."

All she was taking back were the clothes on her back, and a backpack containing: a sleeping bag, dried jerky, a filled canteen, a bag of heavy gold dice they had found in Coin's safe, a knife, the custom black bow Beetee had given her, and a quiver containing two dozen arrows with regular, incendiary, armor piercing and rope arrows.

When her hands weren't on it, the bow looked like a thick black pen. When one of her fingers touched it, two limbs instantly sprang out from the ends, and a thin, incredibly resilient fiber melted out of the side to join them. The entire process took place in the fraction of a second - all you saw was a blur, and then a bow. "Hello Katniss" the bow spoke as she picked it up.

She also brought an item Beetee had created from items he'd found around the palace: A hologram projector / data encoder. On one hand it was filled with images of her home and of Peeta that it could project magically into the air somehow. On the other it could take pictures of anything small and then digitize it on an atomic level. So she could take a picture of a penguin and capture every detail of its biology down to the DNA. Or take a picture of a closed book and store a copy of every word contained inside.

Her mission is simple: Learn as much as possible about the past and bring it forward. Records weren't very detailed about what society looked like at that time. Hopefully, she thought, people spoke her language, and there were lots of animals to hunt. If there were people around, and they looked like her, she'd try to blend in. If not, she could run raids at night into the nearest town. It wasn't a great plan, but she'd survived worse.

"Let's go," she said. "I'm tired and maybe traveling in time will wake me up a bit."

Her bravado hung in the air. Both of them knew she was nervous.

"It won't hurt," Peeta said. "All of the info we've gone through said you shouldn't be able to feel anything."

"They only sent back a dog before," she said.

"It was lined with a sophisticated sensor net," Beetee said. "It didn't seem to suffer anything physically."

Katniss started loading up the equipment. The knife was sharp - good. Everything else she had or would need to make. Or take. She was prepared to do quite a lot of taking, if need be.

"What if I fail?" she said. "What if I'm captured? Or tortured? Can you bring me back early?"

Silence. The harsh light of the ceiling lamps drew long shadows on the floor.

"You're there for a year," Beetee said. "No more, no less. If by chance you're captured, you'll stay imprisoned until a year passes. If you die, and the receiver is still with you, it might bring your corpse home. Or it may just come home without you."

Immediately Peeta jumped to his feet and pushed Beetee backward. "You idiot!" he yelled. "Why would you even _say_ anything like that?"

They wrestled on the floor, Peeta pinning him easily and completely dominating him. Katniss smiled. She'd miss them. Badly.

Katniss put a gentle hand on Peeta's rocky shoulder. "Stop it," she said. "I needed to know what I'm getting into. All of it."

They got up clumsily. Peeta's face was red with embarrassment.

"OK, let's go," she said.

She climbed on top of the dais and stood under the long tube. Beetee sat at a long keyboard and began punching buttons and moving his fingers across a touch screen. A soft blue light began to emanate out of the tube, except it didn't move like regular light. It actually moved slowly. It took a few seconds for the haze to descend down to her head. It tickled, like a cool breeze on her skin, even though the room was completely still.

"We're ready," Beetee said. He looked at her, and his eyes hid everything. But his mouth smiled. Peeta waved and blew her a kiss. "See you soon, Katniss. Stay safe."

She raised her head and kept it strong and steady. She clenched her fists and took a breath.

"Do it," she said.

And suddenly she was gone.


	6. Chapter 6 - A New Night

**Chapter 6 - A new night**

Katniss blinked. Her skin was shedding stars. Firefly-type blue lights were drifting from her body in the air, twinkling out of existence after a few seconds. She held her hands up to her face. She was glowing like a neon torch, but the light was already fading.

The sun was in her eyes somehow. From the acrid metal subbasement hundreds of feet underground, she was now standing on dirt surrounded by trees. The scent of pine, wood and rain filled her nose. Forest reached as far as the eye can see.

Katniss hung her pack on a high tree limb, and then started to climb. Her hands pulled her up higher and higher, the ground becoming distant and small. For a moment she felt only joy, the air in her lungs, and the tree bark against her hands. At the top of tree she could see a mountain range rising up a few miles away, some of the tallest she'd ever seen. The tips were snow white and the rock was a bluish gray, like cold iron.

Between two peaks, far away, there was something else. From here it looked like a thumb-sized black rectangle jutting up from the ground. But it was manmade, a building taller than anything else she'd ever seen. A city - it had to be. And in it - everything she needed.

She made her way down to the forest floor. It was probably around five in the afternoon, and she was hungry. The vegetarian was lush and she could hear birds and squirrels. Maybe there was bigger game afoot. She picked up her bow ("What _will_ we be hunting today, Katniss?" it asked her, a bit too delightedly).

She stalked a deer for a mile and hit it with a shaft to the neck. "Terrible shot", she thought. She was definitely out of practice with everything that had been happening. The deer bounded away another few hundred yards, arterial spray covering the rocks and roots with crimson. FInally, it dropped.

Reaching around the arrow shaft, Katniss pulled it free from the beast's neck. She took out her knife and started removing the viscera, putting her shoulder into the downed animal so it flipped and its guts fell out.

A whistle behind her made her jump.

"Not a clean kill, but you're making up for it with yer dressin'."

She cocked her head back slowly. A man covered in green was looking at her. He had broad shoulders, strong boots and something that looked like a rifle over his shoulder. He wore a strange outfit with green, brown and black patches all over it. The colors made him blend into the forest. Smart. He had tanned skin and a brown mustache like she'd seen older men wear. She started to panic, but first looked at his eyes. They seemed kind. But she'd been fooled before.

Katniss stood slowly up, her arm dripping with deer blood and still holding the knife.

The man's eyes darkened a little, but the easy smile remained on his face.

"Whoa there, miss. No need to brandish. I was tracking that buck as well, but you beat me to it. And with no camo or deer piss either, by the smell of it."

This was first contact, and Katniss didn't know whether to be happy or terrified. "What… what language are you speaking?" Katniss said. "Can you understand me?"

"Course I can. Have you been hitting the bottle? Hunting and drinking are fun, mind you, but not very safe. And we're speaking English. You're speaking English."

He took a few steps closer to her, his gun hanging lazily off his shoulder.

"Are you alright miss? Is someone looking for you?"

This man didn't seem like a threat. but she wasn't taking any chances. And he had a gun. He was also standing between her and her pack, which was still hanging from a tree. She needed that. So she closed the gap towards him while scanning her eyes along the ground, and then at the right moment charged at him full speed. He started to bring up the gun, but she reached him first. She body-checked him and knocked him straight backward on his rear. She kept running, grabbed the pack and left the trees swallow her.

The man sat on the ground, his pants getting wet from the puddle he'd fallen into. He saw her coming but she seemed more scared than angry. He didn't know. He'd been knocked on his ass by a blood soaked girl with a knife. But the knife was never in play. She just wanted out of there.

"The fuck?" the man said. There was nothing else to say.


	7. Chapter 7 - A Blip

**Chapter 7 - A blip**

Rachel Nguyen was trying feverishly to get out and get drunk. There was a Particle Physics Meetup in 40 minutes at a bar in the other side of Denver, and there was a very cute girl there who "sorta kinda _maybe"_ was into her. And all there was between her and the drive over was a pile of formulas her professor had dumped on her to check.

Like most PhD students at the University of Denver, Rachel's work station was wherever she could make room for it. So her laptop was perched atop a stack of rejected thesis papers about non-conducting magnetic monopoles, and half-baked zero-point radiation theories.

She texted one of her friends that she was almost out the door, and was standing up when a lazy line on her laptop screen sudden turned into a vicious spike. She brought her face up close to the screen.

Like any good researcher Rachel always tried to immerse herself in data. She had a collection of readouts that were plugged into various open data University research departments. That particular spike came from the Nuclear Engineering Department. She had friends over there, and she knew there were doing studies in background universal radiation. Overlaying the GPS data over a Google Map, Rachel could see something had just dumped a lot of radiation into the middle of the Colorado Rockies.

Rachel's fingers drummed over her phone. There was the right thing, and then the fun thing. At age 27, which meant more? "I guess that beer will have to wait," she said to herself. She took a sip of her Diet Coke and started googling for the point of contact at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.


	8. Chapter 8 - A Second Sight

Chapter 8 - Second Sighting

After after twenty minutes of running, Katniss tripped over a root and tumbled full-force into the dirt. Her body tried to fill with air, but she couldn't seem to get enough.

"What am I doing here?" she kept telling herself over and over again. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

She was… she wasn't even sure where she was. In the past? In another universe? Both? Beetee tried to explain it to her but mostly she just kept nodding. She knew that they needed her, and believed in her, and that was more than she could say, certainly. Suddenly, she remembered Peeta, and started to cry.

"Why the hell did I leave him?" she sobbed to herself. "I'd rather be there with him in misery there here by myself alone."

She was here on what Beetee called a "fact-finding mission." Ridiculous. She was no teacher, no politician. She looked at the bloody knife that she still held in her hand. "All I know how to do is kill." And I here she was, so far from home, with no one at all for her to kill.

Or was there? Snow's antcestor… what was her name?

"Charlotte," she said out loud. It wasn't even a name, the way she said it. Charlotte was a demon, an incantation of pure evil. Even if killing her wouldn't change anything back where she came from, it would still rid this world of that imperial bastard - President Snow. Charlotte, whoever she was, she was going to die.

That thought helped her focus. She caught her breath, and the panic left her. It seemed to be early Fall here, just like at home. It was still warm, so exposure wasn't a problem. That left food and water next on the list. For water, she glanced at the snow capped mountains, and then tried to think of something more reasonable. She didn't have a spile to tap water from the trees like last time. Her canteen was about half-full, and she was thirsty from her running and hunting.

Climbing a few more trees got her a line of sight with the faraway town once more, and there were some small rivers and ponds in between. When night fell, she made her way over to the river and boiled some water in her pot. She fished in the dark, and pulled up two nice sized brown fish. A 30 foot bridge over part of the river served as decent enough shelter. By day she would sleep or try to get her bearings. By night she hunted and moved closer to the city, sleeping in holes, in trees or under anything sturdy. The weather cooperated.

A few days later she was dozing in a drainage pipe during the day. The pipe stuck out of a small hill, and on the other side was a road about forty feet away. That morning, Katniss awoke at the sound of loud barking. The dog didn't sound like a wolf. But it also didn't seem to be playing. It was eager, maybe hunting. The pipe was too thin to take out her bow, so, after determining that the sound was still a bit away, she slipped out of the pipe.

"Now I'm going to touch you, and you better shut up," she told the bow.

When she touched it, it silently unfolded and waited to see what was next. The barking now had a rustling along with it, and a human voice as well.

"Wait. Hold up, Porkchop!" It was a man's voice, light and not overly aggressive.

She had been out on her own for almost a week. If she had to make contact with someone, maybe this was the time. Peeking over the hill, Katniss saw a small man with a black jacket and blue pants running and waving his hands. He was a strange sight out here near the woods. He had blonde hair and an ovalish face that made him look both kind and childish. He seemed well-fed - his thighs were as thick as pumpkins, but he moved relatively quickly anyway. His shoes were grey and didn't appear to be watertight at all. He was bounding after a ridiculously small dog. It wasn't much bigger than a rat, really.

The tiny dog with the red collar darted over to a lone tree about 15 feet away from her. It started barking feverishly up the tree while the man caught up. Katniss was about to look up but something came down first. A large brown blur came diving out of the treetop and scooped up the dog. Large wings flapped, and a huge bird brought a dog-sized meal up to it's nest.

The man dived to the ground when the bird dived in, and looked up from the mud at the treetop. "P-porkchop?" he said. "Did… oh crap. Crap!"

High up in the tree, a large dark bird with a white head and orange beak could be seen tearing at something, while little cheeps could be heard from it's younglings.

He slapped his head with his hand and slowly stood up, incredulous. "Can't believe it. I can't believe this just happened."

The dog was done for, but maybe there was some way to make a nice introduction. Katniss stood up on the small hill and notched an arrow with a cable attached. She pulled back the bow until the string was tight by her lips, and then released. The bird's head cracked to the side, and then fell limp into the nest. She walked out towards the man until she was in a clearing, and then gave the line a good pull. Out of the tree fell a dark, thick bird with a huge wingspan. It looked like a hang glider with feathers had crashed and broken on impact.

Katniss picked it up by the neck and brought it over to the man.

"Sorry about your animal, but he was avenged," she says. She held out the blood-stained mess of feathers as an offering.

The man's eyes bulged out of his head, but not at her. His mouth mirrored the bird's - wide open and breathless.

"What… how... Why…. why did you DO that?" he said, stammering. Beads of sweat were growing on his brow.

"Do what?" she said, totally confused at his full-on reaction.

"Why the hell did you just shoot a freakin' Bald Eagle, for godssakes?"


	9. Chapter 9 - Birds and Bees

Katniss didn't understand why the man was hysterical. He sat in the mud, head buried in his heads, crying about "my little Porky." They had lots of dogs in District 12. Sometimes when food got scarce they ate them.

"We need to get _OUT_ of here," the man said, sniffling. "I can't have this on my record. I'd lose my pension for sure." He wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"What are you so afraid?" she asked. "Your dog might be dead, but this bird won't be troubling anybody else."

"Except ME!" he said. "This is a Bald Eagle!"

Her eyes didn't twitch. Her mouth was a straight line.

"An endangered species!" he cried.

Still nothing. She helped him to his feet. This was just embarrassing, she thought.

"And our freakin national symbol. It's against the law to kill it," the man said.

"So the bird kills your dog and you do what… nothing?"

The man opened his mouth and raised a finger, but nothing came out. He swore and turned back towards his vehicle.

"I don't know what I was going to do. Probably go home and get drunk. But not commit a felony. Jeez."

He turned back around, and pointed that same finger at her.

"What IS it with you?" he said. "Everybody knows what a bald eagle is. Even kids. You don't really have a foreign accent, so you were born here."

"Sort of," Katniss replied. She compacted her bow. In a flash it shrunk to the size of a carrot. His eyebrows raised a tad.

"I need your help," she said. "I need you to help me save a world. Can you do that?" For better or worse, Katniss was never afraid of getting right to the point.

"I'm Katniss Everdeen," she said. She extended her hand, strong and straight like an iron rail.

"Everdeen? Is that… Irish?" the main said. "Nevermind. I'm Adam Walls."

He left her hand where it was. He looked at her face. It was young and flawless, like a model with all the Photoshops of the world at her disposal. Even the dirt and her smell didn't detract from her beauty.

"You ARE beautiful," Adam said. "But you also sound crazy. So against my better judgement I should be going."

She couldn't let him leave. He was non-threatening and easy to dominate. But she needed to know a few more things.

"How do you provide for your family?" she said. "How well stocked are your food reserves?"

Adam smiled, somewhat uneasily. "You know, I'd swear if you weren't blinking every once in a while I'd be wondering if you were actually a real human being, and not just pretending to be one."

He wasn't sure why he was humoring this very, very strange woman. Well, yes she was beautiful, but still…

"I don't have a family. And I do pretty well for myself, if that's what you're after."

"Can you read?" she said, hitting on the final item.

"Expertly," he said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I should really be going. Got some work I need to be getting to tonight. Us government employees - we really do earn our salaries. Despite what some people think."

Government? It was too perfect, she thought.

"Adam, I need your help. I need for you to teach me about how this country works, and how it should work."

"You want a civics lesson?" he said. "They have those at the community college. Now I really…"

"Listen, Adam. Listen to me. You can keep talking, or you can help me save a country. Create a country. Yes, I'm not from around here. I'm not from anywhere around here. I am from a future world..."

Adam couldn't believe what he was hearing.


	10. Chapter 10 - Salesmanship

He suddenly wished he wasn't out in the wilderness with an a strange, armed woman.

"And HERE we go," Adam exclaimed. She continued.

"I'm from a ruined world and I need the help of someone here to help me fix the place I came from."

Adam started to walk towards the road again. Katniss kept after him.

"I know you don't believe me. I didn't believe it either when I heard just a days ago. But here I am. I came from a place called Panem. It was ruled by a… horrible man called President Snow."

"Snow. Sounds like a classic comic book character," Adam said. "Wasn't he the main character in '_Planetary'_?"

"There is no freedom, no food, no idea how to live thanks to Snow," Katniss said, skipping over the part about her killing him. "People have nothing, and many, many have died. There are no roads, no schools, no… (she gestured towards his blue Prius) whatever that is. I was the part of a rebellion that toppled Snow and his awful followers. They sent me back here because it's the place where Snow's earliest relative - Charlotte Snow - came from. And because maybe we can find a way to live again. With your help, we can."

He reached his car, and put his hand on the door handle.

"Why don't you give me your card, and I'll call you if I can think of someone you can help you," he said.

"I don't have a card - or even know what that is," she said. She had tried to be brave and talk to this man, but it wasn't working. Was he heartless? Why wasn't he helping her?

"I need you to help me." she said.

"You need help," he said. "You've been living out here, I can tell. That's rough. I can call the police and they will take you into town and find you a warm place to stay."

"NO POLICE," she shouted. "They can't be trusted." Police must be their version of those bastard Peacekeepers, she thought. Her head started to fill with images of the beatings and the shootings, but she shook them away.

"You're not from the future," Adam said. "You've had some sort of breakdown, or you're taking this LARPing thing was too seriously. But I don't think you're acting so I'm guessing the former. I'm going to leave now, but I will call someone for you. I promise."

"Look at this," Katniss said. She extended the bow, which also spoke her name in a soft, young man's voice. She held it out to him.

"Not bad, but I need more than that. Probably they make they things in Japan right now," Adam said. He opened the door, and started to get in. She had one last shot.

The hologram projector looked like a long, thin trapezoid. She pressed a button and two metal rods flipped outwards. Immediately a thin screen of white light about a foot tall raised out of the base.

"Prim," she said. Pictures of her sister flashed on the screen, along with her birth and death date.

"This is my sister. She is dead now." Katniss let those words hang in the air a minute.

"Peeta," she said.

Peeta's broad, strong face appearing in the light. He was smiling, just a portrait for a few seconds. Then it started to play Hunger Games footage. Peeta in the forest. During their tours. On fire with her in the chariot.

"This is my husband," she said. "He is waiting for me, along with millions of other people. Will you help me or not?"

Right then, the last bit of snark and cynicism left Adam completely. He was smart enough to know something impossible when he saw it. It was no trick. He spent a lot of time reading tech blogs and he knew that this did not - could not exist. She was from somewhere that wasn't here. It was science fiction that wasn't fiction. She was here. She was talking to him. She wasn't saying "Take me to your leader" but she might as well have.

He felt like he was no longer in control of his own body. He heard himself saying, "Let's go," and he helped her inside the car. When she didn't do it on her own, he buckled her in. He turned on the engine and watched her jump a little. Then, knowing not a thing anymore, he punched in his own home address into the GPS and let his phone tell him how to get home.


	11. Chapter 11 - In the Den

For the first time in her life, Katniss crashed on someone's couch.

The drive over had been both mundane and unreal. The black streets that seems to run everyone were impossibly smooth, nothing like the dirt roads of District 12. They resembled the "too good to be true" feelings that were common in the capitol, with one distinction: In the Capitol everything was always spotless. Unpaid servants and bots took care of that. Here the roads had paper and garbage blowing about. Here things looked used, while the Capitol rigorously created the image of newness and perfection. Looking out from the window of Adam's car, the dirty world somehow felt much more wholesome.

Katniss couldn't figure out why Adam's vehicle stopped so many times during the drive, and how Adam seemed to stop at the exact same time as so many other people. Then, a stream of other cars would come streaming from some other street, all perfectly coordinated, at top speed for a few minutes.

Her glance drifted over to her driver. His eyes were wide and nervously shifting. His face looked full and sick, as if he could open his mouth and his insides would come streaming out. Adam looked wild and exhausted, a feeling Katniss knew too well from all of her guided tours of the districts.

After some time they reached the tall buildings she had seen from the treetops so far away. Even late at night, everything was bright. Light shone down from tall metal poles. People sitting on the streets, looking like beggars, staring at glowing screens in their laps. Incredible smells of cheeses, liquor, hot breads - and at night! How could this past be more advanced than her time in the future? How could so many people be so better off?

"Snow," she said out loud. And she bit her lip and tried to push down the rage.

Adam's blue car pulled in front of a two-story grey building with white shutters, A modest garden could be seen under the lights by the stairs. Red tomatoes winked at her. At the top of a brick staircase were two doors with numbers atop of each. Adam led her towards the door to the left and used a small key to open the door. The room was mostly dark, but little beacons of light were everywhere. The numbers "11:27 PM" beamed out from a small metal box. Small devices twinkled in the corners.

Adam pointed at a long piece of furniture to her and handed her a blanket.

"The bathroom is over there," he said, waving absently at a door. He took a clear bottle from a large rectangular device and handed it to her. It was delightfully cold. "Here's some water."

Adam suddenly stood up straight.

"You aren't going to hunt me, right?" he said. "Or take anything? Or freak out tonight? I have renters insurance, but making a claim is a real pain in the ass. Once in grad school someone stole my comics and…"

"I will be fine and won't hurt you or your belongings. I promise," Katniss said.

Then she did something she didn't want to do. She put her hand on his shoulder and give it a light squeeze. And she flashed him a big smile. It seemed unnatural to her, to express happiness outwardly. It reminded her again of the Hunger Games tours, and the cameras. And the people.

Katniss didn't see herself as a beautiful person, or really as any kind of feminine creature. She loved Peeta but hated the fact that she could feel that way. It made her feel weak. But she understood attraction, and this man seemed to like the way she looked. And she was tired of living in trees. Maybe, just this once, she could make it work for her.

Adam blinked at her, and felt the warmth of her hand. His resolve melted.

"OK, OK." Adam said. "Go to sleep."

He pulled his tired body towards an open doorway, and Katniss heard him collapse on a bed. And then, silence.

She took off her boots and socks and took a sip of water. She couldn't make out too much in the dark room she was in, but for the first time in a long time, she felt safe. Or safer than the forest, anyway. She stretched out her legs and was amazed at how comfortable she felt. She allowed herself the smallest of real smiles before she fell deeply asleep.


	12. Chapter 12 - Bargaining Chip

She awoke to the smell of something familiar - coffee. Sunlight was streaming in through yellow curtains. Adam brought a tall mug with the words "Feds do it… except on national holidays." He also gave her a circular thick piece of crusty bread, and a white spread with a knife. Some fruit in a plastic cup was the final piece.

"I was hoping that you wouldn't be here when I woke up," he said. "Not that I really minded you, but it means that you're real."

Adam sat down on a grey sofa next to her. He was a little taller than her, with brown eyes and short, cropped hair the color of dirty wheat. If Katniss knew what an accountant was, he'd be a ringer for that.

"So if you're here, I probably need to revisit my beliefs about aliens, ESP, the Illumanati and Lizard Men," he said.

Katniss had no idea what he was talking about, but it seems to be a kind of a joke. But this was no time for jokes. She was on a mission. She sat up straight - back to business.

"Will you…" she began.

"Yes, I will help you on your crazy, world-saving quest," he said. He smiled, and rubbed the stubble on his face.

"I took the liberty of taking off work today," he said. "I assume you are on a tight timeline, so we'd better get started teaching you about… everything. How much time do we have before they beam you up? Or back?"

"Do you measure time in minutes, hours and days?" she said.

"Yes."

"Then up to a year," she started matter of factly.

"A year! A WHOLE year?" His eyes opened wide to absorb the news that his guest was not a temporary as he had hoped.

"Please calm down," Katniss said. "It could be just a few months."

"I had just managed - after a LOT of mental preparation - of putting together some TV Sitcom-esque ideas on how to hide you from friends, family and work acquaintances for the next few days. But a year? Birthdays? Christmas? Any dates I'm lucky enough to set up? Vacations? Uh uh. No way. Can't be done."

"I'll pay my way," she said. "I won't be a drain on you or cost you any-"

"Pay me with what? Your pretty face? Well.." he suddenly looked up and away, as if an idea was uncoiling in his head.

"No, nevermind," he said, pulling himself back on track. "There's nothing you can legally do. I'm probably already breaking some law just by talking to you and I'm not super happy about that. You can't work. You're basically an illegal alien. Alien as in… not from this planet. You don't have any work papers or ID. You could be arrested in a second."

Adam turned away and walked over to the window. He heard something hard and metal land on his coffee table with a thud. He turned around and saw a small golden object about the size of a marble. He tried to pick it up with two fingers but it was much heavier than it looked. Much. He picked it up with his whole hand and looked at the shiny golden die, like a pricy relic from a real-life Monopoly game.

"This… is this solid gold?" he said.

"Yes," she said. "The richest man in my country made things like this while we starved."

Adam rolled the heavy object in his hand. With the price of gold at $1,300 an ounce, this golden die was probably worth 10 grand.

"And I have more," she said.

"All right - just stop it," Adam said angrily. "You don't need to bribe me to take you in. This will help pay for expenses and give you some of your own money, which I'm sure you can appreciate."

He looked at what he realized was his new houseguest.

"One hurdle down, ten thousand to go," he said with a sigh.


	13. Chapter 13 - Curriculum

Adam knew how easy it would be for Katniss to drown in the limitless amount of information that was the hallmark of 21st century internet. It wasn't just the risk of ADD-type bouncing between website, or what was called "analysis paralysis." Adam was sure that, like most Americans, Katniss lacked the sophistication to tell between a legitimate news source and left- or ring-wing propaganda.

So while she was sleeping that night, he came up with a schedule for the first month:

Week one: Katniss would read history books that Adam had in his apartment during the day when he was at work. At night, he'd teach her how to use a computer.

Week two: Adam would leave open a few Wikipedia pages and she could use the arrow keys to move around. With no mouse clicks, she'd stay focused.

Week three: She'd have free reign of Wikipedia.

Week four: She could go wherever she pleased online.

It was a good plan. In his bedroom under a blue and orange Denver Broncos blanket, Adam smiled. He reached over and turned out the light.

In the morning, he ran the plan by Katniss. She seemed cautiously optimistic.

"Which books should I start with?" she said.

Adam handed her a few books on Greek and Roman history, a biography of George Washington and a World Atlas. He showed her how to make a sandwich and how to use the fridge and (ulp!) the bathroom. He unlocked the door to his backyard, which faced a small woods and a narrow river. It seemed like a safer place for her to get some fresh air than the front yard.

His day at the Department of Justice was uneventful, mostly because he couldn't concentrate enough to make too many decisions. Adam was a dispatcher of the the police who policed federal buildings. He was about half the size of some of the walking tanks he worked with, known as Federal Protective Service Inspectors. These were the people that investigated federal crimes large and small - lost IDs, vandalism, harassment, assaults.

Adam's only friend was Evarest, an appropriately-named six-foot four Eastern European guard with short blonde hair and a light goatee. He had a large, flat head and chiseled arms like granite. He played poker in his spare time, and had a wife and two girls. Evarest usually worked bomb threats. When he showed up, people actually parted to make way, like Moses at the Red Sea. Evarest was all action. Adam saw himself as the man behind the action, or the "action-izer."

When Adam was growing up in Rapid City, South Dakota, a town of pawn shops and tiny, often shuttered business. His only dream in life was get the hell away from there. His friends moved to the Denver area for jobs, and Adam followed got a great one. Federal jobs had security, great benefits, and decent pay most of the time. What he didn't have was much of a life. Work took up a lot of his life, yes. And he hoped that it would help him get over his shyness. Yes, he bossed around a lot of people, but he rarely felt comfortable doing it. He hated - absolutely hated - conflict.

When he left work, he usually didn't know what to do with himself. His dog Porkchop was a relatively recent addition - he rescued him from a pound three months ago. He hoped it was going to help him talk to girls.

"Like Katniss?" he wondered to himself. No, she was married to someone who was built like one of the people he managed. But she was special. He felt strangely confident around her. Maybe because she was from out of town, and he had a degree of an edge on her. The edge made him feel more confident, around her anyway. Now he just had to make her the equivalent of a walking Wikipedia, and then he could get back to… whatever it is he was doing with his life.

At about seven at night, Adam pulled into his driveway. He let himself in.

"Where's my bookworm-in-training?" Adam said.

The house was empty. Adam expected to see books everywhere, Katniss, eyes bleary and brain tired but happy. But Katniss was nowhere to be found. Could she have gone? "Could someone have..." His breath stopped for a minute. "No. Couldn't be."

He walked through the apartment, around the sofa and through a small kitchen with a beige fridge and a quite heavy black microwave that had seen better days. On the left was a spice rack filled with meat rubs and Mexican spice blends. On the right was a small island with pots and green-handled Ikea knives. The backdoor was open an inch.

Adam opened it to find Katniss in a powerful archer's stance, her legs like tree trunks, strong and still. Her bow was drawn and an arrow was ready to fly. Sixty feet away, Adam could see a tree with a thick group of arrows sticking out of it. The arrows were so close together, they touched. Katniss face hardened. She bared her teeth, like white stones. With a growl she let the arrow go, and it sunk a good two inches into the bark.

Adam approached carefully.

"How's it going? Learn anything today?"

Katniss lowed the bow slowly, and as she did the strength in her limbs seemed to evaporate. Suddenly, she was tired and homesick.

"No," she said, her eyes little brown specs. She flung her bow on the porch. It landed with a clack and immediately zipped itself shut.

"I didn't learn anything at all. I have a problem."


	14. Chapter 14 - 'A' for Effort

Back inside, Adam put on the tea kettle. He used to use a Keurig to make tea, until he heard rumors about the plastic cups releasing hormones when soaked with hot water. So now he used an old metal tea pot with a curved spout. It made him feel either like a grandmother, or a hipster.

Katniss sat at his small wooden circular kitchen table. She munched on a few carrot sticks despondently. Her hair hung down around her eyes, and she leaned on her forearm. She looked at the wall.

Adam did his best to radiate compassion out of his body, like he was opening some valve and it was filling the room like a gas.

"What happened?" he asked. He wasn't used to being a source of strength. Usually, he was the one looking for validation from his parents, or a bartender, or his barber...

"The words were hard," she said, "but I used that book you gave me to help understand them." He had given her a dictionary as a last thought before leaving for the day.

"That wasn't the real problem," she said. She stood up and walked over to the window. Outside, the darkness was slowly swallowing up her marksmanship.

"I am not a…" she began. She picked up the Oxford Pocket Dictionary and flipped to a page with a big circle on it. "A… scholar," she said. "There's only so long I can read these things before my brain gets tired. I can't read anymore. I'm not used to reading this much!"

She kept her back turned to him.

Adam poured two cups of hot water and dipped in some Celestial Seasoning Red Zinger tea bags.

"Back home," she continued, "reading is for rich people. And even many of them don't do it. I learned a little from Prim, and some more during the Hunger Games tours during the long train rides. But I never imagined what it would be like to stand in front of so many words, and try to take them all in.

"These are just directions to a place, or a list of food. These are… huge ideas. Stories of whole countries. So many different…" she paused, and then mouthed the word out carefully. "Civil...a...say...thuns. I don't even know why I'm back here. They should have sent Beetee."

"Who's that?" Adam asked.

"A very smart man who would be better at this than me," Katniss said. She'd already failed. She was the wrong person for the job. She felt shame and anger in endless waves, pushing her under.

Adam reached across the table and took her hands. She flinched for a sec, and then let him.

"Katniss, you're not the idiot. I am," he said. "I was foolish to think that you were a scholar ready to suck up all this knowledge in a completely new way. You've only been here what - a week? I just assumed… and that makes an ass out of me, and just me."

She didn't get the joke. But he kept going.

"Let me take a crack at this," he said. "OK, the history of the world in sixty minutes or less."


	15. Chapter 15 - Lengthy explanation

"Wait," Katniss said. "We can try this, but I need to tell you something."

"Shoot," Adam said.

"Shoot what?" Katniss replied.

"Ugh… nevermind. Just go."

Katniss stood up and started pacing around the room. "I feel like these walls are making me crazy. I'm not used to just sitting around in a house so long. Where I came from I am always moving, getting somewhere, breathing the night air. Can we go someplace else?"

"Like _outside_?" Adam said.

"Sure, why not? Surely you didn't think I was going to stay inside here for weeks and weeks?"

"Well," Adam said. "That would be the safer idea."

"I'm not using into safety," she said, a fire behind her eyes. "I can take care of myself. Let's go."

Twenty minutes later, they were sitting at a wooden tables with a red and white checkered tablecloth on it. There was a pitcher of Sam Adams and two pint glasses before them.

"Cheers!" Adam said, and raised his glass. Katniss brought her glass to his with a "tink" sound.

He drained a good bit of his beer and brought his glass down. He adjusted his glasses and began.

"In a strange way, I think I've been waiting all of my life for this moment. I'm always thinking of ways I would explain things to a son if I ever had one. Everyone likes being a teacher, I guess. But anyway… OK. Here's the thing. I think all societies need to be built on facts. Yes, legends and myths are important too. But the great civilizations - Greece, Persian, Japanese - they understood the importance of SCIENCE. The scientific method runs through them and keeps them growing and improving.

"A society that respects and empowers teachers is in good shape. Do you understand? Jewish people revere their teachers and call them Rabbis. In American professors have jobs for life. They should be paid better, for sure. Make sure you make that happen. But yes, science. Science doesn't solve all problems, but it does blow apart crazy theories and make it harder for there to be cults or holy wars. Religion… well, I'll leave that to your people. I'll preach science, but I'm not getting into the God thing."

Katniss opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it and let him continue. She put her hair in a ponytail as Adam talked about the planet as something that rotated around the sun, which actually a star. And that gravity was like an invisible hand that pushed things down at all times. Light and everything she saw was actually made of these small things called atoms. Human beings were made of atoms, but also these tiny things called cells. We had trillions of these in our bodies, and they were alway moving and doing amazing things.

She took a sip of the brown liquid in her glass. It stung a little, like a baby bee, but the pain was quick. She remembered drinking with Haymitch and watching what liquor did to him. Adam didn't seem to be like that, but she'd keep an eye on his habits. He was crucial to her mission, and she had to keep him safe and together. He was hitting her with so much. She questioned a lot of it, but tried to keep an open mind. How could these people who lived before her be so much smarter? Once again, it came back to Snow.

"... and that's what we call 'evolution.' " Adam said. "And over time - huge amounts of time - living things change. They adapt to their environment and become better and stronger. Or they die."

Adam leaned back on his stool. He and Katniss were sitting on a high table with playing cards printed onto the coasters. Katniss looked at him, expressionless.

"Any of this getting in?" he said.

"A little," she said. "Hearing you talk is better than trying to read everything."

Adam nodded. "Well that's good to hear. I'm wondering if I'm up to the task, though. I'm not a scholar either. I have a general idea, but the more I'm trying to do this, the more I feel like I'm giving you the comic book version. We need to up our game."

"How do we do that?" Katniss said.

"I think we need to send you to school," Adam said.


	16. Chapter 16 - Served

The Pentagon parking lot was so large you could literally run drag races on it at night. People loved to speed by the winding road on the way from Washington DC to the nearest attraction - the Pentagon City mall. Keel Davids was sitting in his black Humvee watching cars whiz fast. He had one of his three beers in his hand.

"It's not usually fun watching people get pulled over here," Keel said into his phone. "They are either too rich to care or so poor it's a real bitch. At least that's what the cops here tell me."

"Fuck em," Evarest said. "You speed, you pay. People are just always too impatient. Or too lazy."

Keel was Evarest's East Coast online poker buddy and he'd lost far too much of his very impressive military Information Technology salary to Evarest's killer hands. They'd played football together in high school - Keel for fun, Evarest for real. Keel was tall, bald and ebony skinned. He looked a little bit like Isaiah Mustafa from the Old Spice ads, but with low, thick brows. A scary dude until he smiled.

Evarest had already worked a long day at Denver's Department of Justice office with Adam, but he didn't mind chatting with Keel as his large black boots took him home.

"You've got no heart," Keel said.

"I do so," Evarest said. "It just has no room for lawbreakers."

"Lawbreakers? You sound like fucking Judge Dredd."

They both cracked up at this. Suddenly, ominous bleating of classical music filled the air.

"Is that from Star Wars?" Evarest said.

"Yup. It's the Darth Vader theme. That's the work phone. Boss. Hold on." Keel said. He muted Evarest and ran his finger across his work phone. He held the black square up to his face.

"Hi Ankur. What's up?"

Keel's smile quickly started to melt. His brow drooped and he took a breath.

"OK. I'll be there in 15." He hung up, and picked up the other phone.

"Don't tell anyone, but something is going down tonight. All the spooks are saying we're being hacked big time. Industrial pile on."

"No shit," Evarest said. "The Chinese or the Russians?"

"We don't know," Keel said. He put down his beer and popped in a breath mint. "The signal keeps changing, but it's definitely local. It's actually… hey, you didn't turn Black Hat in the last few years did you?"

"No," Evarest said. "Why?"

"Signals' coming from Colorado - your neck of the woods," Keel said. He hung up and started briskly walking toward the security gate.


	17. Chapter 17 - The Ask

**Chapter 17 - The Ask**

The Denver's Deluth Community College campus looks like a cross between a strip mall and an office park. It's beige brick walls stand tall over a series of parks and parking lots. It traditionally has served minority, low-income and first generation students.

"Wikipedia says it's got more than 7,000 students," Adam said, as he sat behind the wheel of his Prius. Katniss sat beside him, watching people walking to and fro, staring mostly at their phones. From time to time they'd look up, talk to someone, and then let their heads drop back to their screens.

"Why are they addicted to those small objects? Is it feeding them something they need?" she said.

"In a way," Adam said. "Those are communication devices. And also cameras. And also libraries. And games. Lots of things."

Katniss marveled at the power contained inside such a small device. In her time most of the technology seems to be about either killing people or making a select few of them very, very comfortable. This equality in information was incredible. Everyone seemed to have one, no matter how poor or young or old.

"They sound amazing," she said. "Can I buy one?"

"You can certainly afford to," Adam said. "But you're here to learn and see and hear things from real people. You can take all the information back with you. In fact," he said with a smile, "we've already got that taken care of.

"Last night I managed to hook up your… shall we say projector, to my wifi. Well, to be more accurate, it cracked my wifi password all on its own. Once it was online, it immediately starting downloading everything it could from the net. I think it may have actually downloaded THE WHOLE INTERNET, as of last night, anyway. And the hard drive on it is still 97% full. Incredible. It's full of text, sound and movies - everything for your people to spend a lifetime looking over.

"Even better, somehow it's organized it based on credibility. So Wikipedia and news archives are first, which is good. Now they'll just need you to make sense of it, and give them a firsthand account of what this puzzle looks like."

Adam adjusted his hair and straightened his sweater vest.

"Let's start walking," he said.

They got out and heading towards one of the larger school buildings. The brick walkway had the names of famous alumni and donors carved into them. Small bushes were dotted along a beautifully manicured quad.

"So I MAY have used to date someone here," Adam said. "May have. Before I got a few pay raises under my belt I used to be an adjunct professor here. That's like a teacher-lite. But it paid a few bills, and I met Veronica Tyler at a party there."

Adam stopped to notice how chatty he was. Most of the time, he talked to himself or his now-deceased dog. But Katniss seemed to be bringing something out in him. He smiled, and kept talking.

"She's an anthropologist - the woman I dated. We broke it off because she got bored of me, which is good because bored is better than hate. You remember what I told you about what to say, right?"

"Yes," she said, stifling a sigh.

These games were getting tiresome, Katniss thought. She hadn't expected this. She more thought she was going to be on the run as some kind of book bandit, stealing knowledge by night from abandoned libraries. How dumb was that. Apparently information was a lot easier to get than she thought. Now the only part left was to embody that knowledge, and put it inside her head. The information in her projector was good but dead. She needed to make it alive.

Veronica was a thin brunette with wiry arms and brown hair that cascaded down her head in two clean sheets. She was snacking on some peanuts in her office when they walked in.

"I expected _you_," she said to Adam. "I didn't not expected someone this attractive to be with you."

"IN-appropriate," Adam said. "But hello, Veronica."

"Hey hon," she said with an edge. "What brings you to the halls of knowledge this fine morning?"

"A favor," Adam said. "But not for me."

Katniss' eyes had been dragging on the floor since they walked in. Slowly, meekishly, she raised her glance so it met Veronica's. Then she pulled it away.

"Catherine," Adam said, addressing Katniss. "This is my friend Veronica. Catherine, can you tell her what you told me?"

Katniss / Catherine held her hands together and let them hang low, as if they were loaded down with iron.

"I live up in Johnston, way up Route 29," Katniss said. "I came a long way to talk to you."

She paused, and let the silence fill the room again. Dramatics was new to her.

"I've never asked anyone for anything. I don't come from a lot, and I have even less since my folks died. My sister too." The thought of Prim brought an actual tear to her eye, which both pleased and disgusted her.

"But I've always loved the idea of being smart. Of learning about the world, especially history. I met Adam at a supermarket and he told me about a friend he has who works at a college. I don't have a lot of money, but I told him I'd pay my way to and from school if there was a course I could sit in on. Not for a degree or anything. Just to learn."

Then she was quiet. She felt breaking eye contact again would be over the top, so she more or less kept her eyes on Veronica's even as her head stayed low.

"I was wondering if there was any way you could help me with a class," Katniss said. "I don't need to be on any lists or hand in any work or anything. I don't want to make work for you. I just want to listen."

Veronica's arms were crossed. She looked annoyed more than anything.

"I'm an anthropology professor, not a history professor," she said. "I'm afraid my classes wouldn't work for you."

Adam stepped in.

"Yes, I told her that, V. I did," he said. "But she was determined to ask you anyway. I was waiting for her at the bus station and brought her in like she asked. I told her that we weren't friends anymore, too."

"I don't think I deserve this," Katniss said. "But it's something that I want. I feel like it connects something great. I feel better about my life when I learn about other people. I feel a part of this world, like I'm a piece of it."

Veronica studied them both.

"This isn't some trick, is it?" she said. "This is a real case of a 'Rags to… Books' story?"

Adam gave a shrewd smile. "I suppose you could say that."

The professor walked back to her desk. "I'm not making any promises, because this is strange and this is… just strange. But I know two professors who I make be able to coerce. Let me make some calls."

And she did.


	18. Chapter 18 - Trapperkeeper

Katniss held up a thin, yellow piece of wood up to her face. It was covered in a flecky paint, and had the enigmatic worlds "Dixon Ticonderoga" on the side. She held it before her eyes, trying to determine its function.

There were more than 400 items related to pencils in that aisle of Staples alone. Katniss was wearing clothes she had just bought at the mall next store, including brown boots with thick soles, white capris that fit snug around her hips, and a crisp grey windbreaker. Adam wore a button-down shirt that looked a little too crisp, and what a teenager might call "Dad jeans."

"You can't write with this," she said, pointing to the pencil. "The end is blunt."

"Yes, the end is blunt," Adam said, a little too condescendingly. "And that's why you sharpen it."

Katniss scoffed. "With a knife? That would take quite a while."

"No, with a special device called a pencil sharpener. I'll show you later."

Adam tossed a box of pencils into his cart. Then, after a moment, threw another three boxes in as well.

For some reason, this store was difficult for her to take in. This world was so literate! She had seen so many words online and in all of those books, but it was hard to imagine that people were actually writing all those words. How did they have the time? How were they all so smart? I guess of course it made sense to have a store devoted to good work and good writing. This was a nation of creators, of innovators. People were allowed to say what they wanted. That was freedom.

She licked up s trapper keeper with the band One Direction on the cover. The boys were standing on a white background, seemingly floating in time and space. Their hair cuts were crisp and they looked impossibly attractive , as if layers of vulnerability and frailty had been stripped away.

"Are these people leaders? Or royalty!"

"No," Adam said. "Just crappy musicians. You could probably be on a trapper keeper and other school supplies too if you stayed around long enough. "

They added 3-ring binders to their cart, along with some pens, graph paper, erasers, scissors, a stapler and a new printer (Adam usually did most of his personal printing at work). They also tossed in a dozen shrink-wrapped, lined notebooks.

"I feel like a parent," Adam said. "Except I think we can skip the gluesticks and glitter."

Katniss said nothing. She picked up a blue backpack meant for hiking. The straps were sturdy and the bottom had a neoprene cover that made it waterproof.

"I'll take this too." She said. "Much better than the one I have now."

"That's a bit outdoorsy for school, but go for it." Adam said. "I'm torn about phones. I want you to be able to contact me, but I'm worried about you drowning in Apps and missing out on too much because you're staring straight down all day. Then again, a newer smartphone will be very trendy and might help you fit in more."

They pushed their cart towards the front of the store. Bored teenagers were standing around I red shirts. A few were helping customers.

"I don't want to fit in," she said. "I don't want friends either. I just want to learn everything I can before the machine takes me back." It had only been two weeks, but she knew it could be any time, any second.

"I should probably have the projector on me at all times, in case I get pulled back. " she said, suddenly scared. She stopped the cart. If she wasn't prepared when her time came, the whole mission could be a failure. She needed to be smart. Like the Hunger Games. This was more than just her life and death. Her world was depending on her. She started to feel for a moment. It was fear, and sadness, and loneliness. But she caught herself. She screwed her eyes shut and clenched her fists.

Adam put one of his hands on her shoulder. His hand was small, but warm.

"I'll get you a flip phone with my number in it" Adam said, trying to alleviate whatever was coming over his strange new friend. "I'll just add it on to my plan. And hey — what kind of s teenager would you be if you couldn't text someone?"

Katniss tried to keep her stony resolve, but Adam was too nice. She softened a little. She opened her eyes. They were in the checkout line now. Katniss took out her new wallet and a sheaf of bills that they got from the "Cash 4 Gold" store.

"How many of these do I need?" she said, eyeing the pieces of green paper.

"The person up there will tell you. They are called cashiers. "

It came to $140 and 46 cents. Katniss studied the green bills and handed over eight twenties . The woman handed her change and Katniss smiled. Maybe she wasn't so hopeless after all.


	19. Chapter 19 - History 101

The small amphitheater had 120 seats, and every one was filled. Katniss sat towards the top. She had taken off her windbreaker and was wearing a red and blue plaid top, with her usual jeans and boots below. Her hair was done into a simple braid. She wore no makeup, which made her stand out considerably from most of the the other women in her class. By her feet was her backpack. On her desk's mini table rested a notebook and a sharpened pencil.

Below her, a woman in her forties was writing "Mrs. Dorothy Fields" on the 30 foot long blackboard. She wore a brown thin sweater, tan pants and some red shoes. Her hair was in a sensible bob, with some grey mixing in with the brown. She felt like someone's mother, and her voice was kind.

"I hope you all can read my name. This is Western Civ part 1. This class is graded on a curve, so study hard. I love and welcome smart questions. Let's start where the core of what most of you believe today began - whether you know it or not. I mean Ancient Greece…"

And Dorothy was off to the races. Katniss at first couldn't even take any notes - she was too entranced. She was seeing the oldest vestiges of her culture described so clearly, she could feel and smell every beautiful detail. She could see the wise Senate, the earnest scientists, the hardworking farmers, even the requisite beggars. She could feel the many seemingly disparate parts of that ancient society working together in harmony. It was beautiful.

After class, Veronica introduced the both of them, describing Katniss as a "very eager student who may matriculate here if the stars align." Professor Fields smiled, and welcomed her newest student. Taking her on was easy enough - the class was large enough that Katniss wouldn't attract any attention. She also got Katniss into her afternoon American History and World History courses, and an Ethics class taught by an adjunct professor who didn't mind.

Days passed into weeks. Katniss began to soak up the story of her — and her world's — past. She learned about the rise of city states in Mesopotamia, the invention of paper by the ancient Chinese, and the incredible wisdom and farsightedness very of the Declaration of Independence. She also learned that this world had also faced times of incredible hardship and evil. She learned about the slavery of African Americans, the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, Tiananmen Square, and more. In class, and frequently at home as well, she would sit stunned as she learned about the horrors of man. It was Panem all over again.

And yet she learned to see the big picture. She saw mankind bounce back from oblivion and corruption, and evil. She learned about Gandhi and Martin Luther King and non-violent resistance. She learned about strong leaders who had turned their countries towards better days. And the subjugated people, no matter how terrible their treatment, were able to rebuild their lives, and regain their hope.

Slowly, Katniss started to get it. This world worked because of a strong word of law, democratic elections, civil rights and a free and transparent press to watch over it all. At night Adam talked with her about politics, current events, how to play chess and even a few recipes. They watched Law and Order, the Simpsons, and Jeopardy.

Very slowly, her mission began to fade. Peeta and Beetee became less substantial - as if they were dreams. She began to like it here. She was stimulated, well-fed and utterly safe.

The next day she was chatting with Professor Fields before class. The school had become like a second home to her. She looked forward to class. She had never felt more like she belonged.

"I've really enjoyed having you in my class, Catherine" Professor Fields said, using the false name she had provided. "You're always on time, and your writing is getting better and better."

Katniss beamed with pride.

"I wanted to introduce you to someone who may be able to give you some extra help outside of class if you're interested."

Into the room walked a young woman. The first thing Katniss saw was her dazzling smile. She was like sunlight, Katniss thought. Her hair was long and blonde, so light it was almost white. Her skin was rosy, the color of a fresh pear. She wore an orange blouse and a metallic silver skirt. She was perky and alive.

"Catherine," Professor Fields said proudly. "This is Charlotte Snow."

Katniss, rooted to the spot, was speechless.


	20. Chapter 20

At first, Katniss was very far away. She was in a tunnel, blackness and fog on all sides. Far, far away, in some distant light, there were voices. One familiar… one not but somehow infinitely important. Someone was speaking who was... central.

Katniss came to with a start. She was standing upright. People were talking to her.

"Catherine?" Professor Fields said. "Are you all right?"

The Professor was at Katniss' left, her face all concern and worry. Charlotte Snow had one hand over her mouth and was reaching out towards her. "Should I call 911?" she asked aloud.

"No," Katniss said. "I… I'm all right. Thank you. I… I just remembered..."

And with that she grabbed her bag and was off. She took the bus home, sitting in the front, eyes focused on something that clearly wasn't in front of her. Other patrons took one look at her and walked to the back of the bus.

Finally home, she burst through the door and almost knocked over Adam, who was watering a ficus.

"Whoa… slow down, speedy," he said. "What got up your ass?"

She didn't answer, and charged into the spare bedroom, her room now. Adam could hear things being moved about, and Katniss swearing in low tones. Finally she emerged, bow over one shoulder and three arrows in her fist. She made her way to the door. Adam stood in the way.

"Hey, what's going on?" he said, trying to sound more compassionate than afraid. "What happened? Did someone hurt you? Talk to me."

"Charlotte!" Katniss cried. "She's here. She's there. At school now. I met her."

She moved again towards the door, but Adam held her back. Or tried. Katniss probably weighed as much as he did.

"Charlotte?" he said. "Charlotte...Snow? The president's ancestor?"

"Get out of my way, Adam."

"Wait…. wait," he said. He could tell that she was on full boil now. He'd never see her like this. Her eyes were cold. The veins on her neck were engorged with blood. Bloodlust had replaced the Katniss he knew. He hated confrontation, but knew that she needed him before she did something stupid.

"You can't just take a bus over there with a fucking bow," he said. "You'd be arrested instantly. Now slow down and let's talk about this."

"No talking!" she said. "This world is all about talk. There's time for talk, and time to act. Drive me to school. Now."

"Katniss, Charlotte is meaningless. Killing her won't bring anyone ba-"

"She's the cause of all of my pain. Everyone's death is on her. If I just let her go… I can't do that."

"Kill her a hundred times. It won't bring anyone back." Adam said calmly. He stared deep into her eyes, trying to mentally wrestle her down. He was mostly just scared for her. Mostly.

"Then she'll do the same thing here. To your world. You should be helping me do this!" she yelled. She was breathing hard, and wanted out. Adam was weak, and he wasn't going to stop her.

"Katniss, you need to stop. Hand me the bow." Adam said.

And then she hit him. She pulled back her powerful arm and connected with Adam's soft nose. The impact lifted him off feet. He flew back into the closed door behind him. The room became spinning lights, and then darkness. He fell to the floor, blood running down his blue Oxford shirt.

She flexed her fist for a second, watching him. When he didn't get up, she walked back to Adam's closet and took out a dufflebag. She stuffed the bow, arrows and a few other things inside, and bolted out the door. A few blocks away from Adam's house was a major intersection. Within five minutes she had hailed a cab (just like she'd seen people do a dozen times in front of school) and was speeding towards campus at 60 miles per hour.

Before she got around the corner, she rolled down the window. Her phone sailed in a lazy arc towards the pavement, where it exploded into a hundred fragments.


	21. Chapter 21 - The Move

Route 70 started in Baltimore on the east coast, ran west through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana before winding Southwest and West again all the way to Denver, and then continuing on until Utah, where it dead-ended in the blissful tranquility of Fishlake National park. It's a four lane highway leading into Denver, and traffic is usually very, very thick in the afternoon.

But on this particular day, two of the lanes were clear. The reason was very simple: a sixteen motorcycle escort was making the way for six camouflaged ATVs and six black Humvees. The local FBI office had scrambled its agents and were in talks with the Pentagon.

In the lead Humvee, riding shotgun was a barrel of a man by the name of Captain Margraves. Captain Margraves was short and angry as a beer keg thrown down a flight of stairs. He had a passion that was bordering on obsession with terrorists. Anything having to do with terrorism meant press, which meant accolades if he succeeded and political demise if he failed. He thought most Americans spent far too much time thinking about Muslim terrorists. The homegrown ones - the Timothy McVeighes and the Unibombers - were far more dangerous and harder to track.

To the all-knowing brain of Captain Margraves, it couldn't be any clearer than if it was written in an email: The strange burst of radiation, the hacking incident. There was a terrorist in Denver.

His orders were clear. Full-force was authorized, but only if the shot was clean and there didn't appear to be any bombs or other weapons. Otherwise, shoot to kill.

He flexed and released his fingers, again and again, as his body began to fill with the limitless rapture of the hunt.

"You, scumbag, are mine," he said out loud. "I can't wait to have my gun tight against your ribs."

The driver, a smart man with a perfect tan, continued to drive without responding.


	22. Chapter 22 - On Point

Miles away, Katniss arrived on campus. She gave the cabbie the amount he told her, and left without tipping. "Hey. Fuck you!" the cabbie yelled. Within three seconds Katniss had her bow out and an arrow pointing towards the cabbie's sweaty head. He hit the gas and was gone.

Air was being pulled into her heated, angry lungs. Her eyes scanned the buildings surrounding the history building. They looked up. An adjacent building across the walkway was tall and seemed to have a flat roof. It was only two stories tall, but lacked any ladder she could see. She jogged around the perimeter, and found a window with a thick stone ledge, with a similar one right above. She stood on the lower one and managed to dig her nails in between the bricks and hoist herself up to the second story. The day was surprisingly warm, and the blinds were drawn to keep out the heat. No one saw her pull herself up to the second story landing, and then pull herself up to the roof.

She caught her breath momentarily, then raced across the pebbled rooftop to the edge. Below, students were milling about after class, flirting, chatting, wasting time. From up where she was, their skulls were just a tad smaller than the head of her arrow.

Her head, blinded by rage and adrenaline, temporarily cleared. What was she doing? Things were going fine. She didn't need the bow. She didn't need to kill, to be like Snow. There were other ways to improve her world.

But that was her head talking. And she was never one to spend too much energy listening to it. She got down on one knee, and waited for her prey.

It didn't take long. A white haired girl with an orange shirt came out. Neither she nor anyone else saw Katniss. People in this world always looked down, Katniss thought. Charlotte took a few steps down the stairs and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. She held those in one hand while she took out her phone with the other. She stood, fourth step from the top, motionless.

Katniss wasn't one to hesitate. She notched an arrow and aimed it at Charlotte's chest. She exhaled, and let it fly.


	23. Chapter 23 - Speed

Adam's eyes came into focus on the first thing in front of him - a pair of old brown slippers. But slippers are on the floor and… Adam realized that's where he was too. Did he slip? There was slick of blood on his shirt. His nose was on fire.

"Oh shit," he said, as he remembered being fiercely decked by Katniss. Or maybe not so fiercely, but then again he'd never been in a fight before. Did that count as a fight?

"Well, not the time to be thinking about that," he said. "She was…" He waited for the thoughts to crystalize. "The school!"

He grabbed a towel on the way out and started mopping the blood off his face.

He pulled out of his driveway and floored it. He called Katniss's phone. It rang and rang - nothing. He throw the phone in the back. "Fuck!" The word sounded odd. He never swore like this before he met Katniss.

Adam raced onto the highway and kept moving from lane to lane. He cut off a bus, and nearly sideswiped a motorcycle. He did whatever he could to earn every foot. He had to get there before it was too late.

Suddenly behind him he heard sirens. Adam was doing 85 in a 65, so immediately he began to sweat.

"No no no no," he said. "Not now!"

A cop car was many car lengths behind but was closing up fast. It's lights were spinning wildly. The siren seemed right in his ear. Adam also realized he was still covered in blood. He began to slow down, and began to pray out loud.

The police car pulled up behind him. Adam could see the policeman's stern face and dark sunglasses in his rearview mirror. Adam put on his right signal, but then the police car zipped around him and kept going.

"Yes!" Adam cried. The car sped past. He was safe.

Suddenly, three more cop cars zoomed past him, along with an ambulance right behind.

"Oh no," he said, feeling his stomach contract and his chest turn to ice.

"Katniss - what have you done?"


	24. Chapter 24 - Small rain

Charlotte Snow was smart. She knew that, and her 4.0 couldn't be argued with. So, yes, she had a good deal of homework that night. But margaritas were calling, and she always looked forward to some quality time with her friends. She had a new party app on her smartphone she wanted to show them. You put the phone on your forehead and it showed movie titles, so only your friends could see them. And your friends gave you clues about what was on your phone, and you had to guess them. It was a blast.

She walked outside into the afternoon sun and immediately the sun got in her eyes. She opened her purse, and fumbled around looking for it. Finally she found her shades in that darkness, and put them on. She was running a little late, so she decided to text her friends. She took out the phone, and began typing in her passcode.

Then a bird came diving at her face. It flew right by her, kissing her at it sailed by. Charlotte screamed and threw her arms around her head. Her cheek felt like someone had cut it. She stood up and put her hand to her face. It was bleeding in a long, thin line. She looked behind her to see where the bird had gone.

But there was no bird. Instead, there was what appeared to be an arrow sticking out of the granite steps. It seemed impossible for an arrow to penetrate stone, but there it was in front of her. Upon impact, flecks of stone had shot out in a fan. If that had hit her...

"What the…" she said.

A large body grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet.

"Run!" someone screamed. "Someone just tried to shoot you!"

Charlotte felt people rushing by all around her. A tall man with long sideburns was half carrying her back inside the building for safety. She touched her cheek and winced in pain. What the hell just happened, she thought?

Up above, Charlotte had already compacted her bow and was running back towards the backside of the building. She had missed! It's not like she was out of practice, either. Maybe it was fate. Maybe Charlotte really was innocent. Or maybe Katniss just didn't have it in her. In any case, it had all gone to hell.

She stopped at the side of the building, and after contemplating it for a second, tossed her dufflebag into the branches of a tall tree. She then threw her leg over the side of the building and began to let herself down. If she could get off campus…

"Up there!" A young man with a crewcut was pointing right at her. "That's her! That's the shooter!"

Things were moving too fast. Katniss' legs were over the side. There was nowhere to go but down. She dropped to the ledge below, but only half of her foot made it. The world tilted wildly, and the green earth below rushed towards her far too quickly.


	25. Chapter 25 - Big Dave

"Big Dave" Richards didn't drink and drive. But Big Dave did pull 32 hour shifts behind the wheel of his rig. Usually, coffee and pills was enough to make the haul from beef packing plants in Texas, game meat from northern Alaska and bison from western Colorado.

Today, however, clearly wasn't his day. His 48 foot, 130,000 pound trailer was lying heartbreakingly on its side clear across Route 70, cutting off the eastern route leading into Denver. Dave, a short but quite heavy man in his 40's, was OK. He was on the phone to his wife. After that he was going to call his boss, his insurance company, and then find a nearby hotel, where he would sleep for 14 hours. When he woke up, he would find he was out of a job.

Among the 2,134 cars stuck in the traffic jam behind his overturned truck were a dozen Homeland Security Vehicles and some very irritated anti-terrorism teams. Among them, an incensed Captain Margraves. As he melted down inside his Humvee like a nuclear reactor, the driver began to sing The Beatles' "Sergeant Peppers" silently to himself.


	26. Chapter 26 - Scanning

Evarest was playing TitanFall on his PS4 when his cell phone rang. Most people loved playing the Titans in this game - the towering robots with guns as long as houses. But he preferred playing the pilot, a man-sized hero that required skill in addition to combat sense. He pressed pause on the game.

"What's up, chief?" Evarest said jovially into the phone.

The voice on the line was out of breath.

"Evarest," Adam said. "Evarest…" He sounded like he was calling from his car. He could hear cars honking outside, and the air conditioning blowing in the background.

"Yes… Is everything OK?"

"Turn on the police scanner," Adam said. "Now."

Evarest was used to Adam being a nebbishy nice guy. He never rose his voice, just did his best to use the spirit of cooperation to get things done. Evarest was the one who used force and his very large presence to get things done.

"OK," he replied. "One second."

Evarest grabbed his laptop and pulled up his Police Scanner app.

"Anything I should be looking for?" Evarest said.

"Any high profile arrests?" Adam said.

Now _that_ was very strange. Adam didn't even know people who jaywalked, let alone got arrested. Evarest checked a few channels - they were all the same.

"There was a shooting at a local college. Suspect in custody," Evarest said.

Adam's blood froze. The one thing… the worst thing that could have happened. No ID, and attempted murder. She probably had her data projector on her as well. It was over. It's also possible they'd quickly track her to him. And then what? Lawyer up? Claim he was kidnapped? He couldn't think fast enough to fight all of the terrible scenarios that kept building in his head. It looked really, really bad.

While Adam's insides were clenching like a clamshell, Evarest kept up his scanning.

"It seems… Adam - is this a friend of yours?" Evarest said. "Are you mixed up in this?"

Adam said nothing. "What else?"

"The suspect… is injured. They're still being taken to the police station, so I guess it's not life threatening."

In his car, ten minutes from campus, Adam was attempting to stifle a scream that was part anger, part fear and part frustration.

"Evarest…" Adam started.

Time to put on the big boy pants, Evarest thought.

"Adam, shut the fuck up and get over here," Evarest said. "We'll figure this out. Just hurry."

For the next seven minutes, Adam looked at his hands. All of his wrongs over the past few months were looking at him in the face. He could barely stand it. And he had put her in harm's way, let her loose in a crazy world. Of course she freaked out. And now she'd killed someone, and it was all his fault.

Adam's phone buzzed.

"NOW" it said it capital letters. He turned the key in the ignition.


	27. Chapter 27 - Recall

A mile below the surface of Panem, Pino Olivier was on guard duty. His job: watch a mountain of metal all night. He didn't know what the massive machine in that sub basement did. He didn't know what half of the items in that bowels of the Presidential palace did, for that matter.

He did know it paid handsomely in food rations, and that people had been watching it around the clock for the last three months. The machine was always on, air whirring as it was pulled through the massive turbines, and energy siphoned consistently from the city generator at an incredible rate. It made a sound like anvils raining on a metal roof.

Pino resembled a skin-covered yellow rake, but with a severe underbite. His thin frame had on a long white shirt, brown dirty shorts and sandals. He had short spiky brown hair and loved only two things - women and candy.

He sat on the floor and practiced drawing dirty pictures of a girl he'd seen early that day. Maybe he'd show her a few of his pictures, and that would inspire her. Or flatter her, even. People liked to know people were thinking about them, he thought. Maybe he could even sneak her down her down here once.

Suddenly, the house-size machine with endless tubes running out of it began to emit a new whirring sound. A ceiling-tall generator suddenly jerked, as if a huge hand had yanked it like a lever. The instrument panel that had been glowing a cool blue for weeks suddenly turned red. It felt like he was in a giant engine which suddenly was seizing.

Pino's gum fell out of his mouth. He ran to the far wall, and slammed his fist into a large red button.

Miles away, a blue bracelet on Beetee's hand began to vibrate vigorously.


	28. Chapter 28 - A Ride

Katniss didn't lose consciousness when she hit the ground, but she wished she had. Within a minute two very large police officers were on her. One had a knee into her back as he twisted her arm behind her head. The other had his gun trained on her. When no one was looking, he gave a sharp, quick kick into the top of her head with his boot.

"Cuffs are on," Officer Toole said.

"Fantastic," Officer Graham responded.

They pulled her to her feet, and radioed it in.

A police car came around, and Katniss was pushed roughly into the back. They fed the cuffs around the restraining strap on the back seat, so she was doubly tied. But the truth was she was in far too much pain to do much escaping. The fall from the second story has busted at least a few ribs. Her left arm was either broken or dislocated. So the manhandling was just added insult.

The car jumped into motion. Suddenly Katniss heard a piercing whine in her ears. It pulsed in and out, and made her feel like her head was about to vibrate off her neck. She started screaming.

"Jesus," Officer Toole said. "Shut UP, bitch."

She winced, and took it. She guessed the sound was related to her capture in some way. It just seemed to be coming right out of the car itself.

On the road, the adrenaline finally drained out of her. She remembered riding the trains around Panem during the Victory Tour, forced to travel under penalty of death or her family's murder. She was captive then, and now it was even worse. Bound like a animal in the back of that car, a screaming siren in her ear, she felt like a total failure. This stupid idea, of shooting some young girl, she had done this to herself. There was no point in fighting. Let they do what they wanted to her. She deserved it.

She overhead the mean in front saying something about her "Mer-anda Rights," and how she wasn't going to get them. Officer Toole looked back at her. His face was fat and he had a rough beard stubble on his jowls. He looked sweaty and a bit too excited. He blew a fat kiss her way. "Let's see if you and I can spend some time together before you get locked away forever." He smiled, his teeth looking as wide and fat as him.

At the city station, they pulled into the parking lot. Waiting for her a dozens more police cars, and a crowd of large men in uniforms. Their purpose seemed to be just to scoff and gawk. They seemed to break into two camps: the disgusting catcallers, who whistled and even pawed at her, and the angry ones, who called her terrible names that she could only guess at.

They pushed her into the building. A woman in her 40's, with a short pointy nose and blonde hair pulled tightly behind her, lead her into a small room with a heavy door. The room had two grey chairs, and lifeless tan walls. Katniss was pushed hard into the seat, and her arm screamed.

"My name is Officer Bornt," the woman told her flatly. "Now listen very closely. I'm going to search you, and I don't want any crap from you."

"I need to see a doctor" Katniss said. I think my arm is…"

The woman slapped her, and Katniss was so surprised she gasped.

"You don't deserve to see a doctor," Officer Bornt snapped. "Now shut up and let me get this over with."

Katniss had to slowly pull off her shirt and pants. The woman looked on dispassionately, and checked the pockets of every item she was handed. Removing her clothes was excruciatingly painful with her arm hanging at a weird angle, and the shooting fire coming from her side. She even had to pull down her underwear while the woman peered at her privates.

Officer Bornt looked at the items Katniss had. "No ID, no keys, no receipts," she said angrily. "Nothing. Just 61 bucks and some change." She had her thick arms crossed in front of her chest. "What's your name, darlin'?" she said. The word "darlin'" dripped with venom and animosity.

Katniss opened her mouth, and then closed it. She remembered watching a program on TV with Adam about the police. A few of them, actually. In it, the police were always trying to get information from the suspects, and the suspects had these people called lawyers who kept telling them to be quiet and not say anything.

Officer Bornt squatted down and put her hard eyes an inch from Katniss' face.

"Are you deaf? I am talking to you. What's your name?" she said, louder.

Katniss said nothing.

"You just tried shot an arrow at a student on campus. You are filth and no one is going to stick up for you. No one is going to come rescue you. We can do whatever we want to you. And the only prayer you have of seeing that doctor is IF YOU START TALKING."

Katniss felt fear well up in her throat. She was at their mercy. She had no leverage. But she knew the more that she talked, the more trouble she would be in. She didn't like this prison, but she's sure this world had worse places for people they didn't like.

She clenched her jaw, and said nothing. She was going to have to take whatever they threw at her. And wait for the inevitable.


	29. Chapter 29 - The Tip

Stuck behind the truck, on a highway blocked for 10 miles in each direction, the Department of Homeland Security team was making calls to other cities to see if they could get to Denver faster. A crane was moving the truck, and Captain Fred Margraves was on the phone trying to see if they had any more information about the terrorist suspect.

Captain Margraves leaned against the door of his Humvee as the afternoon sun warmed his muscular arms. He was trying to connect the dots between the radiation spike in the woods and the global hacking. His gut told him the two items were related. His office had put out a call to the hunter who had been assaulted near the location of the radiation spike. He'd given a description of a white woman in her late teens, with long brown hair, and a muscular build. Not the profile he expected for a crime like this, but whatever.

He was checking his email when he saw a local news story about a shooting that had just happened on a college campus. A young woman had been almost shot in the head with a arrow, of all things. The suspect, as described by students at the scene, was….

"Jesus Christ!" he said.

As the truck was finally moved, Captain Margraves barked orders to his men.

"High speed to the Denver police station. We've got her now."


	30. Chapter 30 - Hidden Potential

Evarest ended up meeting Adam at his house, since he apparently had a busted nose and was covered in blood somehow. Adam has changed clothes and had a pack of frozen peas over his face.

"So what the hell is this all about?" Evarest said.

Adam knew Katniss didn't have any ID on her, and that would be very bad for her. They would probably keep her there for a short while, and then transfer her to a federal facility or Homeland Security, and at that point she'd never see the light of day again.

The terror he felt should had been paralyzing. He remembered the first time he asked out a girl, his first job interview, when he saw Katniss hand him a dead Bald Eagle. Every time, his brain shut down and fear rooted took over. So now, with authorities and an attempted murder in the mix and firmly connected to him, he should have been at his lower point.

But while the fear was there, it wasn't in control. Katniss needed him, and she was in the middle of something bigger than him, bigger than anyone should have to endure. He was her only hope, and panic wasn't an option. But he couldn't do it alone. Adam had to convince his friend, and fast.

Before saying anything, Adam went into the bedroom. He wanted to show Evarest the projector, and convince him in one fell swoop, but it wasn't there. He tore the house apart, but it wasn't anywhere. Katniss must have taken it, along with her bow and… Suddenly he remembered that she only had taken three arrows. He found the quiver hanging behind the door.

"Look at these," Adam said. He laid out a dozen of the arrows on the desk. The only thing Adam knew about arrows was from watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Evarest had done a little archery with Keel in college. Half of the arrows seemed normal enough, except the material they were made of was incredible strong, light and flexible. When he picked them up, each arrow warmed slightly to the touch. They ended in fierce barbs.

Bu the others were even more unusual. The final five arrows had thick, cylindrical heads that almost looked like AA batteries. Each also had a colored band right below the hand - two arrows had red bands, two black and one yellow.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I met someone very, very special and… well… we need to get her out of jail."

Adam began a rambling, five minute summary of Katniss and her mission. And the projector, and the holograms, and Charlotte, and the eagle.

"And there are some of the weapons she brought back from the future," Adam said, speaking a single, rapid monologue. "No, she shouldn't have tried to kill Charlotte. But nobody was ultimately hurt too badly. And if she's in jail that means that either the police have her projector, or it's out there somewhere. Certainly we can't trust that item falling into the hands of anyone from this time. And if we don't reunite them, when she goes back to the future, millions of people are going to die a slow, painful death."

Evarest sat unmoving. His large arms lay on the table in front of him, palms down.

"And I know this sounds crazy and stupid but that's really what's going on," Adam said, spent. 'And the only thing I have to show you that can prove it are these stupid arrows." He picked up a black-banded arrow by the end.

From seemingly nowhere, a man's voice said "Smoke."

Adam put the arrow down. He picked it up by the head. Nothing. He held it by the center and squeezed. Nothing.

Evarest reached over and took the arrow by the head. He looked at it closely for a second, and then held it behind his back, with the head sticking up and facing the ceiling. Then he flipped it and held it by the end, as if pulling it out of a quiver.

"Smoke," the arrow said.

"It's telling us what kind of arrow it is by touch," Evarest said. He did the same motion with the other arrows, and the red said "Explosive," which made Adam drop the bag of peas on the floor. The final yellow one had not one but two words. "Tear Gas." the voice said.

"Adam," Evarest said, standing up. "How long have I known you for?"

"Five years, I think," Adam said. He realized that no reasonable person would believe this story, even with some crazy arrows.

"And in five years," Evarest said, laying these pieces out slowly, "you've been the most boring person I've ever met. A nice guy, a good boss, but completely uninteresting. The person I know least likely to call me up because he's in trouble with the law."

"Hey!" Adam retorted. "And technically right now I'm not in trouble with the law too much."

"Yet," Evarest said. "Because since you don't do drugs or other crazy stuff, there's no reason you would just create a story like this. You're a rational guy. You wouldn't jump into something like this on a whim. Something convinced you to risk your government pension, your freedom and sense of normalcy by taking in some strange woman for nearly three months. And it convinced you so thoroughly that you would try and convince ME, which is clearly insane."

Adam knew he was finished at this point.

"You're right," Adam said. "I don't know what I was thinking." His head felt very heavy. He suddenly felt so foolish. What kind of stupid fantasy had he been living? Who did he think he was - Sarah Connor from the Terminator? He couldn't stop some terrible thing from happening. Evarest was right - he was probably the most boring and uninteresting person alive. Katniss would have been better off meeting a homeless man than hm.

Adam held his head and closed his eyes. "Maybe I should take myself down to the police station and turn myself in."

"Yes," Evarest said, a wicked smile growing on his face. "But while we're there, I think we should make a withdrawal first."


	31. Chapter 31

The ornate, silver elevator doors opened, and Beetee ran into the room. Peeta had arrived earlier, and he sat with Pino Olivier as they watched the machine spit out new noises. The instrument panel was glowing an angry red. The towering fuel cells, notoriously loud as they gobbled power, seemed to be slightly less deafening.

The air felt charged, as if lighting was about to strike.

"What's happening?" Peeta said. "Is this supposed to happen?"

Beetee ran around the machines, looking at the hardware and the instrumentation.

"This machine had been putting out a stream of energy to keep Katniss in the past," he said. "It's like holding a weight over your head. It requires constant effort, or the weight comes back down to the ground."

He paused to look at few more readouts. Then he straightened his glasses and continued.

"It seems like this machine is running out of power," he said. "It can't keep up the output required to keep her there, so it's going to pull her home."

"But she's only been there three months!" Peeta said. "We were hoping for a year. What if she didn't have enough time? Can we put some more power into it?"

Beetee shook his head. "No chance," he said. "The tank is empty. Katniss is coming back, like it or not. I just hope she's ready."

"And safe too," Peeta added.


	32. Chapter 32

Katniss was alone in her cell. She thought about Adam, and how she had attacked him, the one man nice enough to take her in. She looked at the four walls around her and at the laughing police outside her door. It made her think of those terrible Peacekeepers. She wondered if a bullet to the head was in her future.

Her shoulder was still on fire, and she hadn't seen a doctor despite being there for more than three hours, although they had taken off the handcuffs on account of her screaming. She had seen her mother fix a dislocated shoulder before. She thought of her wonderful mom as she bit into her shirt and filled her mouth with fabric. She stood against a wall, and took a breath. The she raced again the far wall and slammed her shoulder into it.

Blinding pain was the response, even worse than the fall had been. And her arm remained limp and unresponsive. She pulled herself up again. She could barely see straight, and her head felt the sharp kicks from before. But she gave it another try, and raced towards the wall.

This time she hit it in just the right place, and her arm popped back in. Katniss screamed into her shirt. Fortunately the TV was on outside and people were having a loud conversation, so no one heard her. She moved her aching arm around and found it more or less worked as before. That was good, at least.

She sat on the metal chair and considered her options. She found she had none. At least she had thrown the projector and her bow into that tree before they caught her. But they'd find that eventually. Even if she survived until the machine brought her back, if she returned without the projector and the data it had collected her mission would be a failure. She knew it contained the foundations of every historical document, scientific rule and geographic map they needed to rebuild Panem. If she returned empty handed…

She put her head in his heads and began to slowly cry. She missed Peeta and her family. What a terrible and ungrateful person she was. She was a failure. She closed her eyes and let despair overcome her.

In the blackness behind her eyes, something else began to swim into view. Tiny blue lights began to shine, like distant stars in a far away galaxy. These pinpricks of light seemed familiar to her somehow. They grew larger, and began to dance like neon vapor.

Katniss opened her eyes. Her hands had begun to shed off a soft blue light, tiny wisps of blue which were rising slowly into the air. She held her hands in front of her in horror. And then she saw something even worse. Through the small, square glass window in her cell she spied the face of Officer Bornt, equally shocked and horrified, with her mouth in a widening "O".


	33. Chapter 33 - The Intros

The lobby of the Denver Police station was filled with old file cabinets, long benches for waiting visitors, and a clapboard front desk covered with signs, forms, and three-ring binders. Behind all those items, in a chair wenched up significantly high, was Officer Steve Lambert.

Desk duty wasn't all that bad, Officer Lambert thought. You had AC in the summer and heat in the winter. There was always lots of not-so-bad coffee. And no one was sticking a gun in your face. Plus, whenever they had a famous prisoner in jail, there was always lots of commotion, people talking, gossiping, speculating.

That night they brought the already infamous "campus archer" perp, one arsonist, three robbers and one wifebeater. For now the lobby was quiet. A radio someone had left on a "Softsational Soft Rock" channel and it was playing the dreamy "Sailing" by Christopher Cross.

The front door opened and two blonde men walked in. Each were wearing dark, crisp suits and dark sunglasses. They looked like the Men in Black, although one appeared to be in even worse shape than Tommy Lee Jones. The other man looked like a former linebacker. They walked up to the front desk.

Mr. Tall Agent spoke.

"Special Agent Johnson from DHS," he said in a strong, even voice, radiating power its as if he was General Patton. "Here to pick up the shooting suspect from the college case."

"Homeland Security?" Why do you care about a local nutjob like this?" Officer Lambert said.

"We have reason to believe this suspect is a homegrown terrorist," Mr. Tall Agent said. "Can we see her?"

"Sure," said Officer Lambert. He stood up and started walking towards the book. "Can't guarantee about a handoff since we're pretty proud of this collar. But we can talk about that."

He walked them towards a large, metal door. A video camera looked down on them all. Officer Lambert waved, and the door buzzed open. They walked through the door and around a corner. Fluorescent bulbs cast weak light on the tired, faded walls. Past rows of cubicles they walked, and then they took a right towards a sign that said "Lockup."

As soon as they turned the corner, they could tell that something was wrong. A dozen people in bulletproof vests were crowded around a single cell. Officers were removing the prisoners from the adjacent cells and pushing them down the halls, away from the commotion. A woman had her face to the glass, and was yelling, "We need to evacuate the whole building!"

Mr. Shorter Agent pushed his way to the front, with Mr. Taller Agent right behind.

"Who's in charge here?" Mr. Shorter Agent said.

"The sergeant is making a call to the FBI right now," someone said. "They are going to alert DHS and..

"We're DHS," Mr. Shorter Agent said. "What's the problem?"

Officer Bornt turned away from the door.

"This is the woman who shot that girl on campus. About five minutes ago, her skin starting glowing. It's like she's either evaporation, or that her skin is starting to melt away. She's is GLOWING, OK? I think she may be radioactive."

Mr. Shorter Agent looked in through the glass. Katniss was shining like a 20-watt blue bulb. Little flares were rising out of her hands and face, and breaking into glittering dust a few inches from her skin.

"Holy crap," Mr. Shorter Agent said softly, his mouth wide open.

Then he stood a bit straighter and said firmly. "Let me in."

"We can't do that!" Officer Bornt cried. I don't know what that is but it could be dangerous."

"I _know_ what it is. Now get me in that goddamn room, now!" Mr. Shorter Agent said. Mr. Taller Agent, his eyes shielded behind his sunglases, cracked the faintest of smiles.


	34. Chapter 34 - Visitation

Katniss was sitting on the floor, trying not to watch her own luminescence, when the door opened. A short man walked brusquely in, clad in black sunglasses and a very serious suit. His hair was shortly cut and his face looked a bit… Oh my God! She opened her mouth to say something, and the man slapped her across the face.

The man stood over her, daring her to do anything. He had his hands on his hips.

"I know what you're trying to do and it's not going to work, dammit," he said. "We know about the serum, and the program, and it's not going to happen. We have people here and back East and we've know everything. Now are you going to come quietly, or do I need to kick you around some more?"

Katniss looked up and saw Adam standing over her, yelling. He had on a suit she'd never seen him wear before, and sunglasses. He almost looked fashionable, if he wasn't so red faced and angry. Then, his eyes glanced over to see behind him. Three policemen had their heads in the window, watching them both.

"Do you understand?" Adam shouted in her face. He had his back to the door now so his face couldn't be seen from outside. He flashed a quick smile, and whispered "Just play along."

Then he yelled again. "Do you understand or NOT?"

"Y-y-yes," she said weakly. She still didn't know what was going on, but Adam was here. And unless he was always secretly a cop, she supposed him being here was a good thing.

"Good! Now let's go," Adam said. He reached down, took his hands helped her to her feet. She felt three small objects being slipped into her hand. He grabbed her other arm (the god one, thankfully) and twisted it behind her back and pushed her against the wall.

"I don't want any funny business, see? Do you SEE?" he said.

Katniss's other hand was free, and she able able to glance down secretly and see what Adam had put there.

"Okay! I get it! I get it!" she said, making sure it was loud enough for the observers to hear.

Adam grabbed Katniss by her glowing neck, and started to push her out towards the exit. The crowd of police parted as he came through, and he moved his way towards the locked steel gate they came in through. Someone buzzed the gate open, and they began to walk through and towards the main lobby. Deep inside, his hopes started to finally win out over his fears. This was actually going to work.

"Stop right there, dammit." a voice from behind them said.

Adam turned around. An older man in a police uniform was pointing a gun at them. He had gold insignias on his shoulders and his hat. The scorn his wore almost took up his entire face.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" he said. "I haven't signed off on this transfer. And where the hell is the order sheet?"

Adam's mouth opened, but nothing came out. He had used every trick in his book, and had put on the best poker face of his life. But now he was completely out of ideas.


	35. Chapter 35 - Noise Symphony

"Let's head back towards the cell. And let's see some ID from you two Blues Brothers," the older policeman said.

Adam was standing in between Katniss and the policeman, forming an inadvertent shield. Katniss flicked her wrist hand, and a small cylinder left her hand and struck the floor in front of the policeman. It seemed to pop like a miniature balloon, and yellow smoke filled the hallway impossibly fast. The sounds of coughing and gagging could be heard through the acrid haze.

Katniss took off towards the exit. The lobby was empty - all of the men had gone in the back to looking at the strange glowing woman, and all of whom were now vomiting and coughing. Katiss sped through the lobby and out the front of the station. Adam and Evarest ran close behind, past three video cameras. " Stop right there!" Adam said convincingly. "Get back here!"

Adam, Katniss and Evarest raced out the front, and found it was already night outside. But the parking lot was bright. Halogen carlights illuminated their every move..

"FREEZE!" an amplified voice said over a loudspeaker.

Captain Margraves stood atop his HUmvee beaming, flanked with dozens of Homeland Security agents. They wore bulletproof vests and riot helmets. Grenades hung off their bandoliers. Automatic rifles were trained on the three of them. Off to the right, Adam's blue car was in tthe visitors lot. It might have well been on Mars.

"All three of you - on the ground NOW" said Captain Margraves.

"We've got this," Adam said. "We're…"

"I said on the ground NOW," Captain Margraves said. "I will NOT ask again."

"OK! I surrender," Katniss said. "Please don't shoot."

Katniss put her hands behind her head, and got down on both knees. The agents didn't move, but kept their rifles level and ready. Slowly, slowly, Katniss lay down on the ground, and pressed herself into the gravel. Then, when she was as flat as she could get, she slammed one hand down into onto the ground hard palm down.

From out of her fist immediately came a viscous cloud of black smoke. The smokey tendrils were fat and heavy, and when they rose about 20 feet up they started to spread out. The smoke seemed to expand in contact with the air itself, and it kept growing and growing. The car lights were useless. It was darker than night. Some shots were fired into the cloud, but they were wild. In less than three seconds, it engulfed all of them, the cars, and then the entire police station. Even Katniss's glowing skin was completely invisible under the cover.

The smoke was thick and smelled like old silverware. It spilled out into the street. They could hear angry and confused shouts through the blackness. Katniss breathed through her shirt. She reached back to find Adam and and Evarest. They took off to the right and found Adam's car by running head first into it. Adam felt his way around to the other side and got in. When they were all in the car, Evarest advised them all to get down. Adam turned on the ignition, and immediately they heard gunshots as the agents fired at the noise. Adam's side window shattered, raining down glass on Katniss's back.

Fortunately the Prius was a quiet starter. Adam gunned it and drove straight down the street. After driving blind for a few hundred feet, they reached the edge of the cloud. Adam hit the gas.

"Clear off the glass and put all the windows down," Evarest said. "We don't want a shattered window to give us away, although our glowing passenger is doing a pretty good job of that."

"Where to?" Adam said. "Does that glow mean…"

"Yes," Katniss said from the backseat. "I'm heading home now, like it not. We need to make it to the school. Fast."


	36. Chapter 36 - Scale

The streets were relatively empty. As they drove, Katniss glowed brighter and brighter. Soon it was like a sun was in the car with them. Beams of blue light shone out of each window, and it was getting harder to drive.

"Is it getting hot in here?" Adam said.

While Katniss' stomach felt like it was dipped in ice water, her skin was starting to shed heat as well as light. As is if her body was slowly being converted to energy.

"I don't… feel right," Katniss said. She wiped her forehead and tried to clear her head. "I think we need to hurry."

Finally they arrived at the tall buildings of the college. There was a parking lot off to the right, but the road up the main part of campus was very wide. Adam's car hopped up on the curve and drove through the tall metal arch leading to the quad.

"Where are we going?" Evarest said. "We're fairly exposed driving on the grass like this." Some students who were walking to parties were stopping and staring at this strange, glowing, reckless automobile.

"Over there!" Katniss cried, pointing to a tree near a second story building. Katniss threw open the door. She tried to run out, but her legs weren't working very well. She tumbled out onto the grass, and swore. Adam helped her up and she hobbled toward the tree. "It's up there!" she said. "I… I…"

Her skin began to become translucent, as the brightness increased to the point where it was hard to look at her. She was burning like a blue flame.

Adam spied a dark dufflebag about 10 feet off the ground. "Boost me up!" he said. Evarest helped Adam up onto his shoulders. He reached up, his fingers grasping through the air at the straps. So close, so close.

Katiss' body began to flicker. It was now or never. Adam leapt up off Evarest's shoulders, and grabbed an inch of fabric on the bag. He came crashing to the ground next to her, cradling the back like a newborn. He drop the bag, and the projector inside it, on her lap.

She had just enough time to smile, before her light immediately ceased. And she was gone.

The two men were alone in the darkness. Far off, a siren could be heard.

"Let's drive," Evarest said. "I hope you like the desert climate for the next two weeks."

"It's great for my asthma," Adam said. With the lights off, they made their way back onto the road.


	37. Chapter 37 - Epilogue

Panem's first legitimate election was held, fittingly enough, on the Fourth of July. Polling places were set up in some of the many new schoolhouses that were popping up all over the country. For those too old to make it to the polling stations, canvassers went door to door, and out in the wilderness. By their rough estimates, they reached approximately 98 percent of the population. But that wasn't good enough, so a nationwide Census to count the population was proposed that following year.

A man named Arnim Novo was elected president. He immediately made the runner-up his vice president. Every move and edict was covered by teams of reporters from the newspapers Katniss helped found. After building a simple printing press copies were sent off every month, and then every week. Each house had a special space to hold newspapers and books, the first of which was a true account of the Hunger Games, written by the victors.

Beetee led a team of scientists devoted to the most important pursuit - food. Using videos Katniss had brought with her, he began creating a fleet of tractors and dump trucks. They used a special gardening method that allowed them to grow the maximum number of crops in every square foot. They ran hoses through the field with tiny pinpricks in the them, a method known as drip irrigation. At first they grew protein heavy foods like beans, soy, wheat and potatoes, but once there was enough of that they branched out into fruits and vegetables. And Peeta helped teach these techniques to everyone. "A garden in every home" became that year's slogan.

A team of scribes began to copy machine designs, maps, and practical ideas onto paper, which were then transported by train, horse and foot throughout the nation. To do this they created their own postal office, and they began to create trade and mail routes connecting every city.

Haymitch help create rules of conduct for a true police and law enforcement system. They were armed with batons, and nothing more.

Katniss became one of the greatest "Firsts" Panem had ever seen. She was the first to show that vaccines were safe by having herself vaccinated. The first to show microwave food was safe to eat. The first to sign the Bill of Rights. The first to travel into space. And many others. After each first, millions of others followed. "If Katnis Can" became an inspiring slogan for generations.

Professor Katniss Everdeen finally died at age 120, her healthy life marred only with three brief cancer treatments when she was in her 90's. Her casket was carried through the streets via electric car, and televised on all of the major news stations. Her children and grandchildren mourned her, along with her thousands of devoted history students, congressman, doctors, writers, farmers and teachers and 200 million other grateful citizens.

Slowly the darkness was rolled back, and the light of knowledge began to connect people, then cities, and then the entire nation, now reborn as the United States of Panem.

The End


End file.
